Colombia has followed up to now two decades of an economic model of openness to international trade and capital flows. Some indicators from infrastructure, literacy rates and openness to trade show weak results. One sectorial trade balance analysis is done in this article: the main exports of the country are now raw materials such as oil, coal, nickel and gold. These provide the foreign exchange required to reach equilibrium for the trade balance and compensate for the huge amount of the imported manufactured goods that the country barely produces. One effect is that we do not have the chance to develop sufficiently and take advantage of our industrial capacities and human talents, nor to acquire technological expertise to compete in a highly globalized world. Emergence of an influx of cheaper goods from China pose a new challenge to our industrial capabilities, situation which calls for new developmental strategies.